Small Bites: John O'Groats to expand, Matteo's reinvents itself (again), Monday night oyster roasts at the Hungry Cat

      

The new new Matteo's? Old-school Italian restaurant Matteo's had been all but forgotten up until a few years ago, when new owners installed Don Dickman (of erstwhile Rocca) as executive chef, who expunged dishes such as chicken Beckerman from the menu. But Dickman didn't stick around long (he's expected to man the stoves at Claudio Blotta's forthcoming Barbrix, according to Food GPS), and the new Matteo's never seemed to take off. But now a new chef, Antonio Orlando from Fresco in Glendale, is serving his own twists on classic dishes from his hometown of Salerno, Italy. And Murder Mystery Dinner Theater has been added every Saturday night. There's also happy hour -- 5:30 to 6:30 p.m. and 9 to 11 p.m. Tuesday to Friday -- with half-off well drinks. Hopefully, the Red Skelton clown painting is still hanging. 2321 Westwood Blvd., Los Angeles, (310) 475-4521.

T.G.I.M.: Next week (April 6), the Hungry Cat kicks off its Monday Night Oyster Roasts, with Low Country roasted oysters (by the dozen or half-dozen), sausages, pork belly and Hungry Cat potato salad. There will be the requisite beer and cocktail specials. 1535 N. Vine St., Hollywood, (323) 462-2155.  www.thehungrycat.com

JOG for the Valley: Paul Tyler, owner of John O'Groats -- the West L.A. restaurant that draws weekend brunchers in droves, says he will open a second restaurant in Encino in September. (JOG recently was featured in Esquire magazine's "Best Breakfasts in America" issue.) JOG's Valley sibling will be located in the newly constructed Sorrento Building, with a breakfast-lunch-dinner menu similar to the 27-year-old Pico Boulevard flagship (omelets, pancakes, fish & chips, fried chicken, meat loaf...). There will also be a full bar. 16120 Ventura Blvd., Encino (coming fall).

-- Betty Hallock

Photo: Matteo's. Credit: Ken Hively / Los Angeles Times

Freeze! It's a challenge from Egullet

When a challenge from Egullet to go cold-turkey on grocery shopping landed in my in-box, I found myself answering the culinary call-to-arms out loud:

"Do you spend $100 a week on groceries?" YES!! "If so, we have a plan to put that $100 back in your pocket quicker than you can say 'stimulus.' " ALL RIGHT!! "Join me in a week without shopping, as we feast on the bounty of our refrigerators, freezers and pantries." I WILL!!

The idea is to forgo your grocery shopping for one week and pocket the savings. Instead, forage in your pantry, freezer and refrigerator to piece together meals from the long-forgotten bounty: the hodgepodge of frozen pork parts, the half-empty box of macaroni, the unopened jar of salsa.

Think of it as the ultimate Top Chef quick-fire challenge with Rice-a-Roni and canned tuna. I’m a bit of a freezer junkie myself. Right now mine is home to several dozen stray cookies (household baking rule: half the batch must be saved for later), homemade pasta sauces (re-warming instructions included should my husband feel the sudden urge for spaghetti), and a growing collection of chicken livers (I suppose for last-minute Tuscan chicken liver crostini, but I’m not really sure).

Full steam ahead for a week of shortbread crostini a la Bolognese!

And be sure to check out Egullet's post regarding "some simple rules” to abide by. Hmmm. Could they be concerned I might eat that frozen brisket from 2002?

--Jenn Garbee

Junk food fumbles for laughs in Super Bowl commercials [UPDATED]

People who aren't into sports (or pretend they aren't) often get away with watching the game by claiming it's the commercials they're interested in. I'm one such person, taking my bathroom and snack breaks during the game, and hoping for a commercial that will really make me laugh while everyone else is raiding the fridge. This year, I paid special attention to the food- and drink-related commercials, which were grouped into four unhealthful categories: chips, soda, beer and fast food.

The award for most creepy goes to Cheetos. The spot is shot at a scruffy coffee shop where a superficial girl who clearly doesn't belong in the Valley of the Unkempt and Artsy rambles on her cellphone to some other elitist snob about how "ugly" everyone around her is. The camera pans to the cartoon character Chester the Cheetah, who sports an oh-so-boho goatee and glasses. With a sinister smirk, he inexplicably helps set loose a flock of pigeons on the cafe's unwelcome guest.

The Bud commercials featuring the famous Clydesdales were completely inane, filled with failed horse jokes and a strange homage to early-American immigrant horse families. After seeing the Clydesdales bow down to the altered Manhattan skyline (in an almost unbelievable act of commercial crassness) during the Super Bowl that followed Sept. 11, you'd think I'd stop being surprised at how irritated the company's commercials make me.

A 'Top Chef' birthday party

Kids' birthday parties are already kind of like reality television shows (endurance tests, sleep deprivation, food fights), so a "Top Chef" theme party is a stroke of genius. That's how my daughter and her friends from school celebrated Paysie's 11th birthday this past weekend. 

The 16 girls began by decorating aprons at art stations set up in the kitchen. Then they were divided up into groups of four (appetizer, side dish, main dish, dessert), and driven to a nearby Ralph's to shop for food. Back home, the fifth-graders prepped, cooked, assembled and presented dishes of their own design...

Santa's Little Helper: Gifts for kids who cook

 

If your holiday list includes a kid who likes to cook, Times food writer Amy Scattergood suggests some gifts to tuck under the tree -- or to stuff inside a stocking.

Photo: Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times

Olympic fever specials

Unless you're Mia Farrow, it's highly likely that you've caught some Michael Phelps -- I mean, Olympic -- fever. So have some restaurants around town:

West at Hotel Angeleno is offering opening ceremony dishes for $8.88 such as "chicken javelin throws" (chicken skewers). The obsession with the number 8 continues: Boa Steakhouse is offering a four-course "Infinite Deal" menu (steaks and sides such as Caesar salad, garlic whipped potatoes and mac-n-cheese), for $88.08 per couple. The deal is available for 88 days.

Vinoteque is kicking off its Olympic-tied events with a special $8 menu during the opening ceremony, aired on its jumbo flat screen TVs. Other events include Sunday's "Dream Team" brunch in honor of the U.S. men's basketball team.

Darren's in Manhattan Beach is offering an Olympic menu with dishes that represent countries participating in the Games -- Spanish charcuterie and Manchego cheese (Spain); spicy ahi tartare over sweet rice cake (Japan); pan-seared frog legs (China); marinated shrimp and queso fresco (Peru)....  During happy hour (5 to 6:30 p.m. weekdays), these dishes are half-price. And unlike at the opening ceremony procession, there are no diplomatic problems about which country follows which.

West at Hotel Angeleno, 170 N. Church Lane, West Los Angeles, (310) 476-6411. Boa Steakhouse, 8462 W. Sunset Blvd., West Hollywood, (323) 650-8383. Vinoteque, 4437 Sepulveda Blvd., Culver City, (310) 482-3490. Darren's, 1141 Manhattan Ave., Manhattan Beach, (310) 802-1973.

-- Betty Hallock

Photo credit: Roslan Rahman / Agence France-Presse/Getty Images

Potions: Cooking with kids

Ever since my kids were very small, they've loved to make potions.  They'd go out in the backyard and mix together jars of water and dirt, leaves and flower petals, like tiny medieval alchemists. With their discovery of Harry Potter, these experimentations reached a new level. The girls would pretend they were in Snape's potions class, stirring foaming vials of water, vinegar, food coloring, detergent and baking powder (this combo, at left, is what makes the bubbling lava in fake volcano projects) and then pretending to drink them and transform into fairies, cats, Slytherin boys. 

Recently, in an effort to combine this fun with the actual consumption of a healthy snack (and cut down on the amount of cooking supplies they transformed into brightly colored jars of polyjuice potion and veritaserum), we've been making edible potions. This past weekend, Isabel got out the blender and added the following potion ingredients: plain yogurt, strawberries, a banana, honey, hibiscus-flower tea. She blended it, then added a few secret ingredients, stirring and mumbling some incantations.  The seeds scraped from a vanilla bean. (Vanilla extract contains alcohol, so it was out.) A teaspoon of rosewater. Then she garnished the whole thing with fresh mint and a strawberry, for aesthetic rather than magical reasons.  Accio snack. No eye of newt required.

-- Amy Scattergood

Photos by Amy Scattergood

Games foodies play

Holidays mean lots of family time, and this year a couple of board games for food lovers are just the thing.

Modeled after Trivial Pursuit with some Pictionary thrown in, "What's Cooking" is moderately fun -- especially the "What's a Spatula?" category, in which you have to draw a kitchen tool specified on a card and your team has to guess what it is ("shrimp deveiner," "tea kettle"). The "Foodie First" category asks you to name as many items as you can in 30 seconds (traditional Mexican dishes, foods that begin with the letter O, etc.). "Melting Pot" wants to know in what country a particular dish originated; "Renowned Restaurants" asks where you find particular restaurants. Finally, the "What's Cookin'?" category lists ingredients, and you have to name the dish it makes. It's in this category that the game loses a bit of its "foodie" cred. To wit: "4 c. tart cherries, 1 1/2 c. granulated sugar, 4 Tbsp. cornstarch, 1/4 Tbsp. almond extract, 2 pre-made pie crusts, 1 1/2 Tbsp. butter" is the question; "Cherry pie" is the answer. Oh, please! Pre-made pie crusts? 4 tablespoons cornstarch? And what's with those weirdo abbreviations?

"Foodie Fight" blows "What's Cookin'?" out of the water. The questions, which are much sharper, are more fun for food geeks. For instance, a question that starts "What tiny songbird ... " separates the gastro-know-it-alls from the pikers. (The pikers have to wait to hear the rest of the question to attempt an answer; the know-it-alls will shout out "ortolan" right away.) There are smart food and wine pairing questions, real cooks' questions like "Which is the preferred cooking method for tougher cuts of meat -- dry-heat methods or moist-heat methods?"; and just plain silly stuff: "What did James Cagney smash into the face of actress Mae Clarke during a breakfast scene in the gangster film "The Public Enemy" (1931)?" (Again, serious types shouldn't need more than the first five words.)

So while "What's Cookin'?" would more likely appeal to your big extended family, "Foodie Fight" appeals to more dedicated foodists, with plenty of inside-baseball-type questions like "What sausage company founder writes award-winning, meat-focused cookbooks?" And the author, Joyce Lock, seems to have seriously good taste. Take the question whose answer is "Food blogs": "What are 'Gastropoda' and 'Chocolate and Zucchini'?" The latter, of course, is the popular blog that spawned a cookbook. And the former? It's the blog from Regina Schrambling, the Food section's New York correspondent. How cool is that?

"What's Cookin'?," $24.98 at amazon.com; "Foodie Fight," $18.95 at surlatable.com.

-- Leslie Brenner

Photo by Leslie Brenner